In Pace Christi

Fr. Mario Mazzoni was born on 28 November 1925 at Talamona. In 1937, with his parents, he moved to Appiano Gentile. He entered the minor seminary of the Comboni Missionaries at Rebbio di Como in 1938, continued his studies at Brescia and, in 1943, entered the Comboni novitiate in Florence. He took first vows on 15 August, 1945. He attended the lyceum at Rebbio di Como. After an initial period at Brescia for theology, he completed his studies at Venegono Superiore where, on 22 September 1950, he took the final step of perpetual vows. On 19 May 1951 he was ordained priest in Milan by the laying on of hands by the Blessed Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster.

At Lucca he was placed in charge of vocations promotion in all of Tuscany and, over a period of four years he became familiar with many of the parishes of the region.

Towards the end of 1955, the superiors called him to Verona to visit the diocesan seminaries. The purpose of this work was to bring a missionary spirit to the future priests. The Encyclical “Fidei Donum” of Pope Pius XII gave a great impulse to the missionary spirit in the entire Church during those years.

Numerous seminarians chose the missionary vocation. The need to experience the African missions personally led Fr. Mario to leave for Uganda in August 1957. It was a very positive experience that helped him to continue his work of mission promotion in the seminaries throughout the whole of Italy.

Towards the end of 1962 he was appointed to the missions of Ecuador. His first mission was Quinindé, with a population that was 90% of African descent living along the rivers who dedicate themselves to growing bananas. On 10 March 1963, he miraculously escaped shipwreck in the river of the same name. Unfortunately, a young twenty eight year-old Comboni, Bro. Giovanni Piacquadio, lost his life.

In 1965 the Bishop of Esmeraldas invited him to the mission of Muisne, on the Pacific coast. The population belonged to the Manabite ethnic group but also had a number of blacks.

In August 1966 the Superior general asked him to go to Peru to collaborate with the german-speaking Comboni Brothers. He arrived in Lima by plane on 8 October of that year. He was appointed to the mission of Yanahuanca, located 3500 metres above sea-level. It consisted in a valley with 45 towns that had been practically abandoned for more than a decade. He found neither house nor church but the work of evangelisation, especially in the schools, enjoyed much more freedom than in Ecuador. The population was 95% descendants of the Incas and spoke Kechua.

In August 1968, after six years in the mission, he returned home for holidays passing through Bogota where he took part in the Latin American Eucharistic Congress. The coming of Pope Paul VI aroused great interest throughout the continent.

Fr. Mario returned to Appiano Gentile where he was received by his numerous relatives and friends. Early in October he joined the Renewal Course in Rome after which, in April 1969, he was nominated a member of the General Chapter which began early in May and ended on 8 December of the same year.

On 4 February 1970 he again went to Peru, travelling by sea on the liner “Verdi”. The provost and a good number of the youth accompanied him to Genoa. After a voyage of 24 days he reached the port of Callao.

His destination was Lima. Cardinal Juan Landázuri entrusted to him the parish of The Twelve Apostles in the outskirts of the city, a parish with around 30,000 inhabitants. He worked there pastorally for ten years, giving priority to the youth and the families, without neglecting mission promotion on a national level.

At the end of 1979 obedience brought him to San Sebastian in Spain and, a year later, to Madrid. In January 1981 the Bishops of Peru appointed him National director of the Pontifical Missionary Works. This new work, aimed at increasing the missionary spirit in all of the Church in Peru, which meant that he travelled throughout the entire territory of Peru, a country with 2,500 km. of coastline, from the Andes to the immense Amazon forest. The Episcopal Conference of Peru reappointed him for a further three terms, up to 2001. In 1991, together with Fr. Romeo Ballan, he organised the great Latin American Missionary Congress IV.

Having left the Pontifical Missionary Works, in May 2001 he celebrated his fifty years of priesthood at Appiano Gentile. After his return to Peru, he was invited to open a Mission centre at Trujillo and, in 2006, he was sent for two years to the Missionary Centre of Santiago in Chile.

In 2012, returning from Lima where he dedicated himself to mission promotion and family pastoral ministry, he returned to Italy and was sent to the community of Rebbio (Como). In 2018 he was sent for medical treatment to Milan where he died on 29 June 2019.
(Rev Giuseppe, Parish priest of the Parish of San. Stefano, Appiano Gentile, Como).
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 282 Suppl. In Memoriam, gennaio 2020 pp. 77-84.